Monday, February 13, 2012

Samsung Android 4.0 Tablet

Samsung is no slouch when it comes to producing smaller tablets — their first foray into the Android tab market was the 7-inch Galaxy Tab, and they recently revisited that form factor with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. In fact, Samsung seems to love the concept of a 7-inch tablet so much that they have announced their first Ice Cream Sandwich-powered tablet will be the (take a guess!) 7-inch Galaxy Tab 2.

While the news of a new Android 4.0 tablet is enough to get some gadget fans all hot and bothered, the Galaxy Tab 2′s spec sheet doesn’t illustrate much technical improvement over its forebears. It features the same sort of 7-inch PLS display and 4,000 mAh battery as the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, not to mention that they both sport a 3-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facer.

What’s more, the processor actually looks like a bit of a step down on paper: the Galaxy Tab 2 touts a 1 GHz dual-core processor, as opposed to the 1.2 GHz processor in the 7.0 Plus. I’m sure Samsung had their reasons for running with a different chipset — better battery life, or perhaps improved performance thanks to a new SoC — but it’s still a bit odd to see a major player kick off their new line of Android 4.0 tablets without something more flashy.

And maybe that’s part of the plan. More than a few people have pointed out that Amazon’s own wallet-friendly 7-inch tablet has been immensely popular, which may be putting pressure on other companies to try and strike a precarious balance between price and performance. I’m looking forward to seeing how exactly Samsung will try and position their the little bugger, and the wait shouldn’t be too bad. The Galaxy Tab will officially debut first in the UK next month, and will presumably begin its world tour not too long afterwards.